


Routine

by TheWinterSldier



Category: Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: AU where everyone is happy and nothing hurts, Fluff, For Toby, M/M, Porn With Plot, Porn with Feelings, Rimming, Spanking, With some smut, a day in the life of Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers, bdsm undertones, just fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-13
Updated: 2016-10-13
Packaged: 2018-08-22 05:47:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8274995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWinterSldier/pseuds/TheWinterSldier
Summary: "Sometimes, Steve would wake up in the morning and he would be blown away by how his life has turned out.He was in a pretty constant routine right now, so it wasn’t because of some major recent change that he would suddenly think this, it was just waking up and remembering that routine."Written for my friend Toby to help her feel better after the shit she has been through recently.Just fluff and porn.





	

Sometimes, Steve would wake up in the morning and he would be blown away by how his life has turned out. He was in a pretty constant routine right now, so it wasn’t because of some major recent change that he would suddenly think this, it was just waking up and _remembering_ that routine.

First, he turned over to smile at the sleeping body splayed out beside him on the king sized bed. It had taken a while for Steve to be able to stand being in a soft bed, but he could handle it now and he was able to help the love of his life get used to it again too.

They even had a memory foam mattress.

Bucky always slept longer than Steve now on the increasingly common nights where he wouldn’t have nightmares, and that was good. Back when they were kids, Bucky always stayed in bed as long as his mother, god rest her, would allow. As an adult, he only got to sleep in on the occasional weekend when he didn’t have to go to one of his two jobs or if he was working a nightshift. During the war, Bucky rarely slept. He tried to play if off as adrenaline or that he was keeping watch, but Steve had talked to the other Howling Commandos, and they had told him that Bucky used to sleep more before they were captured. Not a lot, there was still a war going on around them, but more than he did after he was captured and experimented on. From what Steve understood about his time as the Winter Soldier, Bucky wasn’t really out of cryostasis long enough for sleep to be a long-term issue, so his only time sleeping for a decent amount of time was when he was frozen. But Steve didn’t really class that as sleeping. It wasn’t exactly relaxing and Bucky would have the same level of energy when he came out as when he went in unless they pumped his frozen body full of chemicals just before waking him. And when he did sleep, it was on the floor of a bare safehouses or a holding cell at whatever HYDRA base he was in at the time with an armed guard watching him, and it would only be for a few hours, no more than four.

He maintained that habit longer than Steve would have liked after he finally got Bucky back. The officers at the high security prison Bucky was kept in throughout his trial said that he hardly slept, and when he did it was on the floor and not the cot provided. That had confused Steve, because despite his own frequent and angry requests, Bucky’s ‘bed’ had pretty much been just a metal bench with a thin blanket. He hadn’t even been given a pillow. Bucky’s therapist had suggested that it may have been a psychological thing instead of a physical thing. Whenever he slept during his time with HYDRA, it was always on the floor, so maybe it was a hierarchy thing. Like Bucky didn’t think he should have a bed or any comfort, because he wasn’t important enough. He still thought he was just something to be used, something that didn’t need comfort.

Bucky had slept on the floor beside Steve’s bed, despite the blond trying to persuade him to give the bed a chance. Steve had slept on the floor with him for the first few weeks, but then Bucky had started crying because he felt bad about Steve “ _feeling like he had to”_ sleep on the floor with him, so Steve had reluctantly returned to the bed and instead just had one arm off the bed so that Bucky could hold it if he wanted to. Months later, Bucky was able to spend an hour in the bed but he couldn’t sleep there, he always returned to the floor to sleep, but Steve had convinced him to take a pillow and blanket with him. They were up to five hours of sleep by then, but Bucky would still always be awake before Steve, waiting for him to give him permission to actually stand and start moving around. That was a little unnerving for Steve too, having to give explicit orders like that.

But now, over a year later, Bucky loved Steve’s bed. Or, as they called it now, _their_ bed. That was another thing Steve marvelled at. Bucky was his, and Steve was Bucky’s. Now, Bucky would stay up late on his StarkPad (sometimes reading an e-book, sometimes googling random things or reading obscure Wikipedia articles) while Steve drew. They would fall asleep together, most of the time after doing other activities Steve couldn’t believe he had the utter _pleasure_ to be able to do, and Bucky would sleep through the night and most of the morning. He didn’t have a war to worry about, no handlers with guns kicking him to wake him, and no job to get up for, so why shouldn’t he get to sleep? He had a lot of catching up to do.

Steve pressed a kiss to Bucky’s temple, half his face buried in the pillow under him and the other half covered by his long hair. Then, he got out of bed and made sure Bucky was covered by the duvet and warm before he headed to the kitchen.

First Steve snuck around their bedroom as quietly as he could to collect his running gear. He closed the door softly so he didn’t risk waking Bucky, then got dressed and left to go for a run. He would run as fast as he could through his route, then double back and meet up with Sam. They ran at the same pace, so Steve didn’t risk giving the poor guy a heart attack, then they walked home. Sam only lived a few blocks away from Steve and Bucky, so they stopped at a little coffee shop for some donuts and coffee on the way. They talked as they walked, about everything and nothing. Sam would sometimes ask when Bucky was going to drag his ass out of bed and come join them, and Steve would laugh and say something like “ _sometime next century maybe”._ Sam and Bucky got along okay, and Steve was immensely happy about that, so Sam never really pushed about Bucky coming to join them. He understood him, and he understood why Bucky didn’t want to wake up early to run through the streets, out in the open. He would tell Steve to say hi to Bucky for him, even if Sam would be coming over that night, and Steve promised to pass on the sentiment.

Steve got home an hour later, and Bucky would most likely still be in bed. Sometimes he was awake in bed, but most of the time (like today) he would be in the exact same place and position as Steve left him. He always checked in though, just in case. As predicted, Bucky was still laid on his front with his metal arm hanging off the bed and the other one splayed over Steve’s side of the bed where it had been resting on his chest before Steve had to move it to get up. He put Bucky’s caramel latte and chocolate donut with rainbow sprinkles in the bedside table next to him and leant down to press another kiss to his forehead before Steve went to the bathroom to shower.

He had never used conditioner in his hair before Bucky started being more like himself again. Bucky wasn’t self-obsessed or anything, never had been, but back before the war he had spent time and money trying to look good. He didn’t need any of it, he always looked perfect in Steve’s opinion. But they had so few luxuries back then, if Bucky wanted to spend an extra dollar or so to get some nicely scented cologne or some good quality wax for his hair, there was no harm in that. Now that Bucky was able to actually believe Steve when he told him he deserved whatever he wanted, he had started to actually request things when Steve went shopping. Steve would never forget the happiness he felt when the question of _‘do you want anything from the store?’_ was answered with something other than a blank stare or an immediate shake of Bucky’s head, sometimes coupled with a look of confusion. The first time, Bucky had asked for something sweet. Steve asked him to elaborate, but Bucky looked confused and upset with himself as he tried to think of something to say, then seemingly changed his mind and told Steve that he didn’t have to get him anything.

Steve had walked into that supermarket on a mission.

Bucky had loved candy when they were younger, so Steve got him all the different kinds of candy he could find as well as a few other sweet things. Chocolate, marshmallows, sour candy, candy with fruit in it, candy with nuts, sherbet, lollipops, M&Ms, Skittles, chewy candy sticks, jelly candies, juice boxes, gum, flavoured water, anything he could get his hands on. The strange looks from the cashier was worth it when he saw Bucky’s reaction. Steve tipped the bag up and poured the content onto the coffee table in front of where Bucky was curled up on the couch. His brunet’s eyes lit up, and his mouth dropped open.

Steve had been immensely nervous when Bucky slowly sat forward to look through everything that Steve had bought for him, then Bucky stood and practically threw himself into Steve’s arms. He hadn’t expected that, it was the first time Bucky had initiated that much contact between them, but he caught him nonetheless and hugged him back tight. Later on, when they talked about it, Bucky had explained that it was when he realised just how dedicated Steve was to making sure that Bucky had whatever he could possibly want. All Bucky had said was ‘ _something sweet’_. Steve could have just gotten him one candy bar, but no. Because he didn’t know exactly what sweet thing Bucky wanted, he got him every sweet thing he could think of. And that was the sweetest thing. Steve had to hit Bucky with a pillow when he made that joke, and that made Bucky laugh, which made the crappy joke worth it for Steve.

After that, Bucky felt more comfortable requesting little things. Steve always assured him it didn’t matter what it was or what it costed, he would get it for him. Bucky stuck to asking for candies for a few months, then he started asking for different drinks. He had read online about all the different flavours of coffee they had, and he was curious. Back in the 20s, coffee was used to wake you up, you didn’t have to like the taste. Now, there were flavours out there for everyone. Then he started asking for clothes, saying that he couldn’t keep stealing Steve’s (though he still did so anyway, not that Steve was complaining). Then different toiletries.

The serum had heightened his sense of smell, and Bucky now loved being surrounded by nice smelling things. This month, they had strawberry shampoo and matching conditioner. Bucky had heard that conditioner makes hair softer, and he wanted to try it. He wanted everything around him to be soft. He was so used to his hair always being messy or dirty, his clothes tight and tactical, hard plastic covering the bottom half of his face, tight goggles around his eyes. Soft things made him feel calm and as far away from that part of his life as possible. They had gone through more boxes of fabric softener than Steve can count, and they always ran out of conditioner before shampoo.

Steve found himself staring at all the different things on the shelf in the shower in wonder. There were three different kinds of shower gel (different smells for different moods), different body lotions and creams that Bucky used to soften his skin a little, shampoos, conditioners, different bars of soap… Mostly all of which were bought for Bucky and most commonly used by Bucky. Steve would use the shampoo and (more recently) conditioner, as well as the shower gel and soap, but he rarely used the other stuff and he usually stuck to the typical men’s smells like sycamore wood and cedar leaves. Bucky joked about Steve being too insecure about his masculinity to use the fruity scented stuff, and Steve would laugh along, but that wasn’t it. He just didn’t really care about how he smelled, as long as it wasn’t terrible, but someone else would smell it and might start asking questions. Probably Stark. It just wasn’t worth the headache.

Every room in his apartment looked a little different since Bucky started being more himself and therefore owning more possessions, Steve thought as he rinsed the shampoo out of his hair.

The bedroom was obvious, Bucky’s clothes were typically on the floor from when he strips off for bed or when he and Steve are having sex and Bucky just throws his clothes anywhere. There was also Bucky’s cell phone and StarkPad usually on the nightstand on his side of the bed if they weren’t in his hand or in the living room, which was a little strange. He had really embraced technology, whereas Steve was still getting to grips with just how much technology could do now. But Bucky loved it, though that shouldn’t have really been a surprised. Bucky had always been a bit of a science nerd, and Steve was glad that he kept that interest despite all the things science had done to Bucky. It was also a way of Bucky reaching out and learning about the world without having to leave the comfort and security of their apartment.

He had candles too, Bucky loved candles. The smells as well as just watching them burn. That had concerned Steve a little at first, especially when Bucky would dip his fingertips in the hot wax, but he soon understood that he had nothing to worry about. Bucky never tried to burn himself or anything else, and he always made sure the candles were out before he left the room they were in. There was also a picture next to Bucky’s side of the bed, framed on the nightstand that Steve had drawn. It was of Steve as the monkey in the Captain America costume, curled up on a giant beanbag chair with a dark brown cat with a bionic paw and black around his eyes, both smiling as they slept in each other’s arms. Steve hadn’t actually intended on Bucky ever seeing that drawing, or the hundreds of other drawing he had done of Bucky, either human or as that cat. He had been drawing it on the couch when he thought Bucky was still asleep, but damn Bucky moved quietly. He had snuck up behind him and asked what he was drawing before Steve could turn the page. Steve tried to hide it anyway, so Bucky just tricked Steve into thinking he wasn’t going to push it, then snatched the book out of his hand to see. Steve was worried he was going to get offended or creeped out, but Bucky’s face broke out in a large smile and he laughed, insisting that Steve gives it to him when he’s done so he could put it on the wall like a poster.

Steve did one better than that. He did the drawing on proper paper instead of just his sketchbook, coloured it and had it framed. Bucky had loved it, and it hadn’t moved from his nightstand since.

The living room changes were a little more subtle. Bucky had a lot of his books mixed in with Steve’s in the bookcase, and since Bucky liked reading curled up on the couch, Steve had switched the light bulb in the lamp on the side where Bucky reads to a slightly weaker beam, so that Bucky wouldn’t have to read by harsh light, but so that it was still bright enough that he wouldn’t strain his eyes. Steve hadn’t told Bucky, but he noticed the first time Bucky used the lamp after he had changed the bulb, he had looked confused for a minute, then he smiled at Steve and curled up to read, the smile staying on his face for at least on hour. Steve hadn’t wanted a ‘thank you’ but that was the best one he could have asked for.

The kitchen was a little more obvious sometimes and very subtle other times. Bucky liked cooking, but he was a messy cook. He used all the utensils possible and assured Steve he would clean up when he was done, but by that point he couldn’t really be bothered. But his food was so good, Steve was willing to wash up for him. So if Steve hadn’t had a chance to clean, the kitchen will be a mess. Other than that, there is the addition of a slow cooker. Bucky loved stew, so Steve bought one so they could have really good stew that was cooking all day. Almost as good as what Steve’s mom would make.

Also, there was now two Stark Industries mugs instead of just the one and a dark pink Hello Kitty mug in the cupboard. Bucky doesn’t really know what Hello Kitty is but he thought it was cute, so Steve bought it for him as a congratulations to him for going to the mall with him. It was quite a big mug, so that Bucky would be able to have a lot of coffee and tea, it had white polka dots on it and a lighter pink circle with Hello Kitty sat inside, the words ‘ _Hello Kitty’_ just under the circle. Bucky loved that mug, and Steve thought it was adorable. He never drank out of it when anyone was visiting, though. Even if he already had a drink left in it, he would go to the kitchen and get a different mug, pour the content of the Hello Kitty mug into there, and hide the pink mug in the cupboard behind the boxes of teabags and coffee. Steve had tried to talk to him about that, but Bucky refused to. He would always shut down, so Steve had dropped it for the time being.

As Steve changed into his new clothes, a t-shirt and a soft pair of sweatpants, he smiled to himself. He could hear the rustling of their sheets, and as he stepped out of the bathroom and saw Bucky rubbing his tired eyes and reaching out for the coffee he knew would be there. Steve briefly wondered if Bucky was ever in awe that they could be like this, so domesticated, but he didn’t have time to ponder that before Bucky noticed him at the door and smiled to him. “Morning. How was your run?”

“Good.” Steve nodded as he snapped himself out of his thoughts and forced himself to move, walking over to crawl onto the bed with Bucky. “Sam didn’t black out, which is always great. He said hi by the way.”

Bucky snickered quietly and put his coffee down to pick up the bag with his donut in it. “That’s good. Did you get mobbed by any excited little kids today?”

“Nah, it was too early for kids to be out. How’d you sleep?” As he finished the question, Steve leant forward to press a soft, lingering kiss to Bucky’s jaw.

“It was good. I had a dream that we had a picnic.” Bucky commented as he tilted his head to give Steve better access to his skin.

His hair smelled like strawberry and his skin smelled like pomegranate. Steve’s mouth started to water, and he flicked his tongue out against the skin of Bucky’s neck briefly.

“Hm? We should make that a reality one day.” He commented as he lifted a hand to cup the other side of Bucky’s neck and keep him close. He felt a little bad when he noticed Bucky put the bag with his donut in down, but Steve couldn’t quite bring himself to feel bad enough to actually stop. Besides, Bucky could easily say no if this wasn’t what he wanted. They had had that conversation at lengths, where Steve would assure Bucky over and over again that if he did anything Bucky didn’t want, he could tell him to stop and Steve would stop without hesitation. And that didn’t end in the bedroom. Sometimes Bucky didn’t want to be touched, so if Steve tried to hold his hand or something when he didn’t want to, all Bucky had to do was say so, and Steve would stop. No hard feelings.

“Yeah…” Bucky breathed out, but Steve wasn’t sure if it was because of the picnic idea or because of what Steve was doing to his neck.

Steve bit as his pulse point lightly, and he felt Bucky’s breath hitch in pleasure. He moved one hand up to the back of Steve’s head to keep him there, and Steve smirked against Bucky’s skin as he started sucking and licking the bite to leave a mark there, where everyone who saw Bucky would know he was Steve’s.

“Someone’s in a good mood…” Bucky remarked, and Steve could hear the smirk in his voice. “Can’t even have my coffee to wake me up first?”

“I’ll wake you up better than coffee ever could.” Steve muttered against his skin in response, and he heard Bucky chuckle.

“Oh yeah? Prove it.”

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Steve did prove it. Barely five minutes later Bucky was riding him with much more energy than any amount of coffee would be able to give him. Unfortunately, there was a comedown. When they were finished, Bucky collapsed forward onto Steve’s chest, both of them breathing heavy, eyes closed. Then Bucky fell asleep. Steve smiled and stayed where he was until Bucky woke up twenty minutes later. He grumbled something about his coffee being cold, and Steve laughed as he carefully moved Bucky off him and took the coffee to the kitchen. He poured it into the Hello Kitty mug Bucky loved so much and put it in the microwave. He stirred it once it was heated up, then took a sip to make sure it was warm enough and still tasted good, and brought it back to the bedroom for Bucky.

Bucky knew exactly when Steve was going, it’s what he always did if Bucky didn’t wake up in time to drink his coffee warm or if they got distracted like they had done today. He smiled when he saw that Steve had used his cup and made grabby hands towards it before Steve had gotten more than a step inside their large room. Steve chuckled as he brought the cup over and handed it to Bucky, and Bucky relaxed back against the pillows he had propped up against the headboard as he took a sip.

Steve pressed a kiss to his cheek, then grabbed the bag with Bucky’s donut in it before he sat beside him on the bed. Bucky pouted slightly at what he thought was Steve stealing his donut, but the pout quickly changed to a smile when Steve held the pastry out to Bucky’s lips.

During Bucky’s recovery, he had struggled to make himself eat. He didn’t feel like he needed it because he was always fed through an IV in his arm and he hadn’t quite grasped the fact that people wouldn’t be securing him to a chair to do that to him anymore. What had made it easier was when Steve spoke to him as he fed Bucky himself. Bucky wouldn’t usually talk back, but that didn’t matter. Steve would tell him a random story of something that had happened with the Avengers (never anything to do with the battles they fought in), like a funny story from a movie night Bucky still refused to join them in, and while he spoke he would spoon soup or porridge into Bucky’s mouth. Bucky wouldn’t fight that way, he would sit in silence, open his mouth when the spoon was near his lips, swallow and repeat. He just listened to Steve’s voice to distract himself until he felt like he had had enough, then he would shake his head when Steve lifted the spoon again, and Steve wouldn’t push.

Now, Bucky enjoyed Steve feeding him still, and Steve enjoyed feeding him. It was nice. Most of the time, it was a non-sexual form of intimacy. Sometimes, if Bucky decided it so, it would become sexual very quickly when he would lick at Steve’s fingers for an unnecessary amount of time, then suck on them, staring Steve in the eyes the entire time.

This was not one of those times. Despite how insatiable Bucky usually was, this morning he seemed happy with just one round. He leant forward to take a bite of the donut Steve was holding out to him, them licked the chocolate and sprinkles from around his mouth, chewed, swallowed, and leant in to take another bite. It was cute, watching Bucky eating the donut from between Steve’s fingers, and Steve couldn’t help but smile at the sight. Once Bucky had eaten all of it around Steve’s fingers, he opened his mouth and Steve pushed the last part in. Once that part was swallowed, Bucky sucked Steve’s fingers into his mouth, but Steve could tell it was just to clean the chocolate from his fingers, then his thumb. Once his fingers and thumb was clean, Steve wiped a little chocolate from around Bucky’s mouth and let the brunet clean that off his thumb too.

Bucky then leant against Steve’s side as he sipped at the rest of his coffee, occasionally holding the pink mug up for Steve to drink some. The caramel had sunk to the bottom of the drink by then, so the last bit was very sugary, too sugary for Steve. Bucky didn’t seem to care though, and he drank the rest without a problem.

Today, Steve had no official business to take care of and Sam wasn’t coming round, so they agreed to stay in their pyjamas all day without having to exchange a word. If it were up to Bucky, they would stay in bed all day exchanging sugary kisses and cuddling into each other’s warmth. But as perfect as that sounded, Steve didn’t have Bucky’s capacity to do nothing. After an hour of cuddles, Steve reluctantly got out of bed to start the daily chores he set for himself. ‘Run’ was done, and a few of the sub-headings under ‘Take care of Bucky’ such as ‘Make sure he eats breakfast’ and ‘Kiss him’ were already done, but there was a lot more of his routine to be done.

He went into the kitchen first, and Bucky followed him to plop himself down on one of the stools at the island. He had no shirt and a pair of Steve’s sweatpants on, a dark blue pair with a small duplicate of his shield on the right hip given to him by some company as a thanks for letting them put the shield on a new line of clothing they were doing in his honour. He got a lot of requests like that and most of the time he just agreed, but he always checked out the company first to make sure they weren’t making these clothes in sweatshops with terrible condition and paying their workers little if anything for their work. He hated that these companies existed, and he certainly didn’t want his image associated with that. But sometimes the companies seemed okay so he gave his go-ahead. Other times he relied on Pepper’s opinion on their ethical positions when he just couldn’t be bothered to look it up, and that hadn’t failed him so far.

Steve then started cleaning up Bucky’s mess from last night. He had made a red velvet cake the day before, and it had been so good that Steve had eaten so much of it, he just couldn’t stand the thought of moving at all, let alone cleaning the kitchen. That meant that the mess was considerably harder to clean than it would have been if he had just done it yesterday. Steve couldn’t bring himself to regret his decision though, and even as he cleaned he was wondering if there was any more of the cake left in the refrigerator.  Cocoa powder was practically glued to the counter by a mixture of egg, butter and flour, and when Steve looked over at Bucky doing something on his StarkPad, the guy didn’t even have the decency to _look_ sorry for his mess. Steve shook his head a little in mock irritation, but there was a smile in his lips as he did.

Once the kitchen was clean, he went to the living room to dust and vacuum, then went to clean the bathroom. He saw some of Bucky’s hair stuck to the shower wall, and he was about to call Bucky in to scold him for it – simultaneously wondering how he didn’t notice that when he showered earlier – but then he remembered that they had sex in there the night before and Steve had had Bucky pressed up against the wall, his legs around Steve’s waist, and Steve’s hand buried in his hair. It’s very possible that Steve could have tugged Bucky’s hair a little too much and caused some strands to pull loose, and in that case the hair on the wall may have been his fault. The strands were a little higher than Bucky’s head would come to, and Steve concluded that that was definitely where Steve had been leaning up to kiss as he was pounding into him. Entirely Steve’s fault.

He washed it off with the shower head, then cleaned the walls of the walk-in shower, the bathtub and their sink. He had only cleaned the toilet the day before, so he decided he didn’t need to do that today.

After gathering up all of his and Bucky’s clothes from the floor and what was in the hamper, he stripped the bed and put everything into separate piles to wash. While the first load was washing, he went to the living room and found Bucky curled up on the couch wearing one of Steve’s hoodies, reading something on his tablet. He must have heard Steve come in, he always did, because he started speaking then.

“Did you know you could die from laughing?” He asked, his eyes still fixed on the screen, and Steve chuckled as he walked over to sit on the couch beside him. Apparently Bucky was on the weird side of the internet again. “Careful. That’s dangerous.” Bucky remarked in reference to Steve’s laugh, and that just made Steve laugh again.

“No, I didn’t know you could die laughing. How so?”

“Asphyxiation from not being able to take enough breaths or a heart attack, apparently.”

Steve nodded a little. He supposed that made sense. “What else have you found out today?”

“Do you know about Phineas Gage?”

“Should I?” Steve cocked his head in interest as he prepared to hear Bucky explain.

“No. He was a rain road worker in the eighteen hundreds. He was pushing the gun powder into a hole with a huge rod with sand and stuff on top of it and it exploded when he was distracted by his men, and the pole entered the left side of his face in an upward motion, just forward of the angle of the lower jaw, maybe fractured his cheekbone, passed behind his left eye, through the left side of his brain and out of the top of his skull through the frontal bone. The rod landed meters away, so it went completely through his head.”

“ _Jesus,_ Buck! Why do you read that kind of stuff?” Steve winced. That sounded awful, and it made Steve feel a little sick.

“It’s interesting. Listen. Then, he fell on his back, convulsed a little then sat up. He could walk fine, even with a hole in his skull. When he got to a doctor, he was so relaxed he greeted him with one of the biggest understatement in medical history to this day. He said ‘Doctor, here is business enough for you’. While he was talking, the doctor could see his brain pulsing. He told a bystander what had happened, and when the guy didn’t believe him, Gage insisted it was true, then leant over to throw up. The doctor said the effort of vomiting pushed half a teacupful of brain out, which plopped onto the floor.”

Steve gagged then and shook his head quickly. “Stop! I don’t want to hear this! I’ll be terrified to ever throw up again, in case my brain falls out.”

“Unless you’ve not a hole in your head at the time, your brain won’t fall out. Besides, why are you gettin’ all squeamish about this? We used to see stuff just as bad in the war,” Bucky reasoned, a clear look of confusion on his face, and Steve shook his head.

“This is different. When we saw brains and stuff back then, the person was always dead by the time we saw ‘em. You could sort of… Detach, I guess. I know it wasn’t fair to the deceased, but it’s what you had to do to keep going. Pretend they’re not real people, try not to think about them walking and talking a few days before…”

Bucky locked his tablet then. Steve heard the little ‘click’ sound effect. He must have sensed the sadness in Steve’s tone, the guilt, and Bucky leant forward to press a kiss to Steve’s cheek. “We all did things we ain’t proud of back then. Or more recently for one of us. Tryin’ to pretend a dead body was never once livin’ isn’t the worst, and it didn’t hurt anyone.”

It was rare when Bucky got a chance to comfort Steve, but when he did, he knocked it out of the park. Steve understood Bucky’s reasoning. He had been trying to forgive himself for what had happened in the war as much as Bucky had been struggling to let go of what he had done as early as less than a decade ago. And as Bucky had said, they had done worst and more harmful things in the name of freedom. Whatever little mind tricks they needed to play on themselves to keep them going was the least of their sins, and God knows they’re both riddled with sins.

They were silent for a few moments, both of them lost in their own thoughts, then Bucky spoke again. “Have you heard of a Spite House?”

“A Spite House?” Steve was sceptical now. He didn’t want to hear another case like that Gage guy.

“This guy left one of his sons all his property because the other one was away in a war. When the brother came back, he found that the first brother had left him just a tiny patch of land barely usable, so he build a skinny house on that land just tall enough to block all of his brother’s light and space.”

Steve laughed at that. Served the first brother right for being selfish. That was a level of spite Steve knew Bucky was capable of, and he could seriously imagine Bucky going through the time and effort, and paying the money needed to build that structure just to screw with someone.

Bucky leant forward to press his lips to Steve’s, effectively cutting off his laugh. Steve’s eyes fell closed, and he happily kissed Bucky back softly before the brunet pulled back again with a smirk.

“Careful. Don’t laugh too much. You could die that way.”

Steve laughed and pulled Bucky in for another kiss. At some point Bucky ended up in his lap, his StarkPad discarded off to the side on the couch somewhere, and Steve snuck to cool hands under Bucky’s – his own – hoodie to press cold digits to Bucky’s warm skin. He felt Bucky’s muscles clench slightly under the touch as he squirmed and let out a little whine against Steve’s lips, and Steve couldn’t help but grin at the reaction as he continued to warm his hands on Bucky’s abdomen.

Bucky’s codename of _‘Winter Soldier’_ was accurate before, when Bucky’s skin seemed to be constantly frozen despite being in their warm apartment all day, but now it seemed ridiculous. It seemed like years of being in and out of cryofreeze had kept Bucky’s core temperature at a perpetually low rate, like that was his average, but after over a year of being as far away from a cryostasis chamber as possible, that had changed. His body now created and maintained heat a lot easier, and he was slowly getting back to the default status of ‘ _human furnace’_ that Steve remembered being pressed up against when Bucky slung an arm around him while they walked. Or when Bucky practically forced Steve to cuddle with him because the heating was out, Steve was freezing, and Steve was also too stubborn to accept Bucky’s offer to help.

Steve now took full advantage of his own personal space heater. It usually led to Bucky yelping in the middle of the night when Steve pressed cold toes against Bucky’s calf, but it was worth it and Bucky never complained too much or too seriously.

They eventually had to stop kissing so that they could breathe, and Bucky rested his forehead against Steve’s as they breathed in each other’s scents. Bucky’s hair tickled Steve’s cheeks since Bucky’s head was tilted down slightly, but Steve liked the feeling. It was another physical reminder that Bucky was _real_ and _here._ Steve’s imagination was good, it could easily imagine how Bucky would feel sat in his lap, his knees either side of Steve’s hips, his hands on Steve’s chest, his forehead against his own. But it couldn’t imagine the little subtleties that came with Bucky being this close. Like his soft hair on his cheeks, his warm breath ghosting over Steve’s lips, the slow up and down of Bucky’s chest as he breathed causing it to brush against Steve’s chest a little. He could smell Bucky’s shampoo and his shower gel, as well as the mint aftershave Bucky had used last night. He had a little shadow of stubble now, but he was mostly smooth. From this close, Steve could see a little red mark where Bucky had cut himself shaving right near the left corner of his lips.

Steve could happily die like this. He was sure of that. A person could die from laughter, maybe Steve could die from pure content and happiness.

After basking in each other’s presence for a little while, Steve reluctantly nudged Bucky to gesture for him to get off his lap so he could stand. He was starting to get hungry, and it was time to take care of another subheading in his ‘ _Take Care of Bucky’_ task. ‘ _Make sure Bucky eats lunch’._

But Bucky pouted and shook his head a little, indicating that he wasn’t going to move in the way of the most adorable little brat ever. Steve couldn’t help but chuckle quietly. “C’mon, Buck. I need to make us lunch.”

Bucky still refused to move, and he shook his head again as he buried his face in Steve’s neck. Now, Steve really was so far gone for Bucky. He adored him, and he would do anything Bucky really wanted or needed him to do. But this was not one of those things; Bucky didn’t need Steve to stay where he was and let him cuddle with him longer. He would just prefer it if that’s what they did. Steve had gotten good at telling the difference between what Bucky wanted and what he really needed. What he needed now was food. He made up his mind, then wrapped his arms around Bucky again, one arm around his torso and the other under his ass.

Bucky must have thought that meant he had won, because his arms loosened just a little and Steve could feel the smile against his skin. He was wrong. Steve used the positions of his arms to hold Bucky close to him, then stood and turned to deposit Bucky onto the couch. Bucky had been so surprised by suddenly being picked up that he didn’t have time to tighten his arms around Steve again before he was dumped unceremoniously back onto the couch. He let out a little yelp of surprise, then pouted up at Steve from his position slumped on the couch. Steve let out another laugh and leant down to kiss Bucky’s pout. He couldn’t help it. That seemed to sate Bucky a little, because he was smiling when Steve pulled back and he didn’t argue as Steve went into the kitchen area. Out of the corner of his eye as he walked away, Steve saw Bucky pick his StarkPad back up and smiled to himself as he looked through the cupboards for something to eat.

Ten minutes later, he had made a few sandwiches, cut them into triangles, and brought them over to where Bucky was curled up on the couch again, the hood of the jacket up this time and one of the drawstrings between Bucky’s lips. Steve didn’t mind that Bucky was chewing on his hoodie. That particular jacket had gotten more of Bucky’s fluids on it than his saliva and that other time had been completely Steve’s fault. It had been a particularly stressful mission and coming home to see Bucky wearing nothing except Steve’s hoodie had been too much for his self-control to handle. Either he hadn’t wanted to waste time getting it off or he just really liked seeing Bucky wearing his stuff, especially when said stuff was too big for him, and didn’t _want_ to take it off him.

Either way, Bucky had ended up coming on it. It had also been covered in sweat; some of Bucky’s but mostly Steve’s dripping down from on top of where he had Bucky bent almost in half on his back on the couch. The couch had also needed a good clean. Worth it, though.

Steve placed the sandwiches on the table and waited for Bucky to finish reading whatever part of whatever page he was reading. Bucky eventually stopped and turned to see the sandwiches there, then smiled. He reached out to get one of the cheese ones, and Steve batted his hand away. Bucky turned to him with a confused expression, and Steve argued that those ones were his. Bucky didn’t fall for it though, especially since Steve couldn’t keep the smirk off his face, and he rolled his eyes and he reached out again, this time successfully getting one.

They ate in silence for a few minutes, then Steve offered to make them a drink. Bucky shook his head and insisted on making the drinks, joking that he needed to _‘earn his keep’_.

Steve was going to argue that just being alive meant that he earned the right to stay with Steve, but Bucky stopped him before he could say that or anything equally as sappy with a kiss. By the time Steve remembered what he was going to say, Bucky was already back in the kitchen. He washed their plate too, and Steve smiled a little at the sight. It wasn’t particularly unusual. Bucky washed dishes often enough, but it was just nice to see. To be hit once again by how domesticated they both are, despite the fact that Steve’s job involved fighting aliens and genetically engineered monsters more often than not. He almost missed the days when the bad guys were almost _normal_ , but then he remembered that his main foe when he first began his career as Captain America was a genetically modified man with a red skull for a face. Then he realised that he was just looking back with rose-tinted glasses and decided the people – or things – he fights now aren’t that different.

Once Bucky was done, he put the kettle on and took out Steve’s Captain America mug, gifted to him by Natasha last Christmas as a joke, then brought his Hello Kitty mug out again. The caramel coffee from earlier had been cleaned out of it, and Bucky put a teabag in each of the cups. Steve was fine with tea, especially the minty stuff Bucky had bought. He had started venturing out more on his own now, and Steve always loved trying to guess what new things Bucky had bought. It didn’t matter that Bucky didn’t have a job, he was just as loaded with cash as Steve was, thanks to Peggy.

Since no body had been recovered for Steve or Bucky, she had insisted that both of their files list them as “Missing in Action” as opposed to “Killed in Action.” Bucky’s name was still on memorial walls, and everyone still classed him as dead until recently, but officially he had just been missing. That meant that their bank accounts stayed open, and they had seventy years of interest built up. Steve understood why she had done that for him, but he still wasn’t sure why she had bothered doing so for Bucky. Steve had told her what happened, she had read the mission report of the day Steve watched Bucky fall from that train, they knew the track they had been on and therefore how far Bucky had fallen. Maybe she knew more about how Bucky had been experimented on than Steve had, and she thought he may have survived. Or maybe she was just hoping. She and Bucky had been pretty close, after plenty of time had passed from Bucky’s failed attempt to flirt with her that he didn’t want the ground to swallow him up whenever he was around her and reminded of such event. They got on great, their own individual brands of sass bouncing off each other perfectly to the point where neither of them could keep a straight face after a round of jibes and they would burst out laughing. Steve had seen Peggy shed a few tears for Bucky too, when she thought he couldn’t see her and therefore she didn’t need to be the stronger one of the two, and she had talked about Bucky in interviews that Steve had watched of her talking about her time in the war.

They never showed those videos in the Smithsonian, just the ones of her talking about Steve. Never her talking about anyone else, or her own experiences and achievements. The achievements were there to be Googled, but never as much on display as her love for Steve had been, and that bothered Steve. She had lived a full life before and after him, and it seemed all people wanted to hear from her was what it was like being about Captain America and being his ‘ _flame’._ The interview where she had talked about Bucky was when they had asked her what it was like working with Captain America and the Howling Commandos. She had talked about the others, mostly reminiscing about Dum Dum’s funny anecdotes. She talked about how she often met up with the surviving Howling Commandos for a drink and to catch up. But she had talked about Bucky in great detail, hailing him as the one who had to do the dirty work but never going into detail about exactly what that was. She talked about his brilliant sniper skills, his quick reflexes and good eye, and equally as quick wit. Peggy made sure that everyone who saw that video knew that Bucky had been a valuable member of their team, as were everyone else, not just Steve. When the interviewer tried to divert her to talk about Steve, she would say that she has already said everything she could possibly say about her time with him, and if the interviewer really wanted to know that stuff, he should have done his research before coming to the interview and watched one of the hundreds of others where she talked about him. “ _Internet. So helpful”_ an ageing Peggy would quip with a pleasant-on-the-surface smile that screamed sass.

It was clear that she had loved Steve, maybe even until her dying day, but she loved the others too, and she knew that their stories deserved to be heard just as much as Steve’s. For that, Steve was infinitely grateful. He didn’t want the others to fall into obscurity because of the large shadow everyone else insisted on making Steve cast.

Steve sometimes teasingly moaned about Bucky having just as much money as him, even though Steve had a job and Bucky didn’t, but Bucky knew it was just teasing and would always smirk and say something about having an angel looking out for him. The angel being Peggy.

Bucky brought the tea over, and Steve smiled as he took his own mug, rolling his eyes at the cartoon drawing of him smiling back at him. The muscles were ridiculously overdramatized. Bucky curled up on the couch next to Steve, this time resting against Steve’s shoulder instead of the arm of the couch, and sipped his milky tea with his eyes closed. Steve couldn’t help but smile as he pressed a kiss to Bucky’s hair, then rested his cheek there. They were only able to stay like that for a few hours before Steve’s stomach grumbled and he was forced to get up to make dinner. Bucky didn’t feel like cooking today, and that was fine with Steve. He just made a simple pasta salad with grilled chicken breast fillets, and ate at the table with Bucky. They didn’t talk much during meal time, they didn’t really need to if they had spent the day together. If Bucky had cooked for when Steve got home from work (‘ _like a good little housewife’_ Bucky had joked more than once), they would talk about their day. But on days like this, they could just sit in comfortable silence as they ate.

After dinner, they curled up on the couch again, and Steve surfed through the channels to find something to watch. He eventually settled on a rom com.

Bucky scoffed at his choice, but Steve didn’t hear him complain any more than that, so he left it on. He could roll his eyes and groan all he wanted, but Steve knew that Bucky had a soft spot for romantic movies. Mostly because they were all the same. They meet, they fall in love, something gets in the way, then they find each other again and get back together. In a round-about way, their own story followed the same formula. Except the thing that got in the way was a train, a fall, Soviets, a Nazi science division, and seventy years. Not your average romance, but they still fell in love, were pulled apart, found each other again, and got together. Steve was determined to make sure there was no sequel to this story, because in the sequel there was always another separation before they realised they really are meant to be together. Steve didn’t want that. He wanted this to be their ending, a traditional “ _… Happily ever after.”_

As the movie got past the characters’ first date and the true romance started to blossom, Bucky piped up. “Why don’t you ever do stuff like that?”

Steve looked down at him as he spoke, then looked up at the screen where the man was giving the woman a bouquet of red roses. “Why don’t _you_ ever do stuff like that?” He retorted, and Bucky laughed.

“Because, I hardly leave the apartment and therefore have no situation where I can just _randomly_ decide to pick up flowers on my way home.”

Steve realised then that he wasn’t just referring to the gesture, he was referring to the situation around it. The man in the movie had been on his way to the woman’s apartment after work to meet up with her, and had seen a flower shop and impulsively decided to get some for her.

“I suppose I just never thought about it.” Steve shrugged, but Bucky didn’t seem too interested in an answer as he had already focused his attention back in the movie.

Whilst Bucky was distracted, Steve got his phone out of his pocket and was surprisingly able to manoeuvre through his phone with his left hand holding it by his side where Bucky wouldn’t be able to see. Two minutes later, he put his phone back in his pocket with a small smirk which thankfully went unnoticed by his boyfriend.

Towards the end of the film, when the woman realised that she _could_ be independent _and_ have a boyfriend, the doorbell rang. Steve got up to take their empty mugs to the kitchen and asked Bucky to get the door. Bucky grumbled something about Steve having been up anyway, but he got up to do it and Steve quickly turned his back on him so he was facing the sink and Bucky wouldn’t be able to see the smirk trying to fight its way onto Steve’s lips.

“Are you Bucky?” Steve heard the guy say, and Bucky reluctantly said yes, clearly suspicious.

Steve looked back over to see one of Bucky’s hands on the door and the other reaching behind the door to Bucky’s coat where he kept a knife tucked into the inside pocket. He really hoped he wouldn’t have to intervene to stop the poor guy getting stabbed, but he realised he wouldn’t have to when Bucky’s hand fell away from his coat suddenly. He must have seen what the man was here to deliver.

Bucky said a quick thank you, then closed the door and turned to face Steve in the kitchen. Steve quickly looked away again to continue washing the mugs, though they were both clean by now, but he did see a flurry of red before he turned. He heard Bucky’s footsteps as he walked over and tried not to smile as Bucky reached past him to get a vase, fill it with water, then put the roses in to place them on the island in the kitchen. Steve turned to face him and watched as Bucky spent a few seconds rearranging them, and Steve was starting to get a little antsy from the silence. Just as he was about to ask if Bucky liked them, Bucky suddenly turned back to him and pulled him into a hug, causing Steve to laugh quietly as he hugged back.

“So… you like them?”

Steve felt more than heard Bucky chuckle against his chest, then pressed a kiss to his temple. “I love them.” Bucky’s voice was muffled, but Steve heard enough and smiled.

He started swaying a little, and Bucky let out another quiet laugh before pulling back just his head so he could look up at Steve. “Are you subtly trying to insinuate that you want to dance?”

“You know I can’t dance.” Steve shook his head with a smile, though he didn’t stop swaying them to the sound of the music over the credits of the movie. He wasn’t sure how it had ended, but he could hazard a pretty accurate guess.

“It’s not that difficult, Stevie.” Bucky teased, the same way he had done a lifetime ago when he was trying to persuade Steve to dance with one of the girls Bucky insisted on setting him up with.

Except now, Bucky wasn’t trying to convince Steve to dance with a girl, he was trying to get him to dance with _Bucky_ , and that was infinitely more appealing. And more persuasive.

He sighed dramatically, then moved his right arm from around Bucky to take his metal hand in his. “Alright fine, but keep it slow. Remember I’m just a beginner.”

Bucky nodded enthusiastically and leant up to press a kiss to Steve’s lips. This was not good for Steve’s concentration, but it was good for him as a whole, that was for sure. Before Steve could even register what was going on, Steve was moving with Bucky to the gentle tones of the music playing from the TV, and he figured that maybe this wasn’t too difficult after all. He wouldn’t be able to do the fancy lifts and twirls Bucky used to do with his dates, but that didn’t matter right now. This was nice, and Steve was fully confident that he could do this all day, as long as it was Bucky he was doing it with.

Bucky smiled up at Steve, and Steve smiled back momentarily before looking down at his own feet to make sure he didn’t step on Bucky’s, but apparently that was wrong because he saw Bucky’s dark hair swish a little as he shook his head and squeezed Steve’s hand. “No, c’mon. Keep looking up, don’t look at your feet. You might think it’ll help but it’ll throw off your balance.”

Steve conceded and looked back up at Bucky’s face, smiling when he saw Bucky’s features change back to a smile. Steve wasn’t sure if what they were doing could really be classed as _‘dancing’_ since all they were doing was swaying together and occasionally stepping closer to or around each other, but he didn’t care. Even if it wasn’t dancing, Steve was happy with just this.

“You’re doing good…” Bucky commented quietly, and Steve beamed at the praise.

“Yeah…?”

“Yeah...”

Steve smiled again and risked leaning forward for another kiss, and when he did he was suddenly very glad he wasn’t wearing shoes because the slight shift caused him to step on Bucky’s foot. Bucky hardly reacted though except for a quiet laugh, but Steve blushed and quickly tried to take a rather large step back as he blurted out an apology. Bucky stopped him, though, and wrapped his arm around Steve’s torso to pull him closer as he shook his head.

“It’s okay, I expected a lot worse given that this is your first time.” Bucky assured him, or at least tried to.

“What do you mean, _‘I expected a lot worse’_?” He tried to sound offended, but he wasn’t sure if it was coming across like that, or if he just sounded bratty.

“Face it, Stevie, outside the battlefield you’re about as graceful as a baby giraffe on drugs. And I’m not talking weed or something relaxing, I mean LSD or some shit.”

Steve tried to look offended again, but he couldn’t help but laugh at the mental image Bucky provided, and Bucky laughed with him.

He couldn’t help himself, he had to pull Bucky close for another kiss, then whispered against his lips. “I love you so much.”

“I love you too,” Bucky whispered back, his lips tugged up into a little smile.

They kept swaying together as they kissed occasionally for what felt like hours. Steve could spend the rest of his life doing this, happily. It was only when it started to get a little too dark in the kitchen that Steve reluctantly pulled back from Bucky. He moved to turn the light on, and when he turned back, Bucky was sat up on the island next to the flowers Steve had ordered for him. The image was too tempting, and Steve quickly moved closer again to wrap his arms around Bucky’s middle and kissed him again. His arms rested on the counter behind Bucky, wrapped around him, and Bucky draped his arms over Steve’s shoulders as he kissed him back.

Bucky tasted like minty tea now, and Steve happily licked into his mouth to chance that taste. It tasted even better from Bucky’s mouth than it had done in the mug, but Steve wasn’t exactly surprised by that. Everything tasted better when he was tasting it from Bucky. Steve even loved the taste of cigarette smoke on Bucky’s tongue. Steve had grumbled plenty of times to Bucky about how unhealthy smoking was, but he had eventually shut up about it. With the serum, it was unlikely Bucky would get ill from it, and Bucky enjoyed it. There wasn’t much Bucky liked that Steve could bring himself to hate.

They kept kissing for god knows how long. Steve got lost in it, completely forgetting that the concept of time even existed, and Bucky seemed just as gone. God, they were both hopeless. Steve was so in love with Bucky, had been since he was old enough to know what love was. And Bucky had admitted to being in love with Steve for just as long, though both of them had been too afraid to mention it to each other. The time wasn’t right. They couldn’t be together back then, not really. They could if they were willing to hide it, pretend they were just bachelors their whole lives and steal kisses in private, having to stay as quiet as possible so that the neighbours wouldn’t find out. But Steve didn’t want that. He wanted to really _be_ with Bucky. He didn’t want to hide his love for this man. He wanted everything to know just how _gone_ for him Steve was.

And now he could.

They had started off a secret, like they thought they had to. When Bucky was himself enough for Steve to not feel like he was taking advantage of Bucky’s vulnerable state, he had poured his heart and soul out to him, told him everything that had been on the tip of his tongue since he was thirteen years old. He told Bucky that he loved him, more than a friend, more than a best friend. He was in love with him, there had been a hole in his life when he thought Bucky was dead that no amount of new friends could fill. Because he hadn’t just lost a friend that day, he had lost his soulmate. And by some miracle, he got him back, and Steve refused to let another day go by where he was holding back. He told Bucky all of this, fully convinced that Bucky was straight. As far as Steve knew, Bucky had never been interested in guys before. He had only ever been interested in girls back then. Never even looked twice at a guy, as far as Steve knew.

Steve knew Bucky was tolerant. Just because being gay was considered a bad thing back then didn’t mean that no one _talked_ about it. Steve and Bucky had. Someone they had gone to school with had come out as gay, and they had talked about it at lengths. This was after Steve had realised he was in love with his best friend, so the conversation had been daunting to him. He was dreading the thought of hearing the man he was in love with tell him that people like him were disgusting or sinners. Or both. Or worse. Even if Bucky wouldn’t have known he was talking about Steve, it still would have hurt. But Bucky didn’t say anything like that. His reaction to Steve asking what he thought about Johnny turning out to be a queer was just a shrug and a _‘live and let live’._

They talked about it more, probably because Bucky saw that Steve looked a little surprised that that’s all Bucky had to say about it, all he thought about it. Bucky had said it didn’t affect him what Johnny did in his spare time with another consenting adult, male or female. He wasn’t bothered when Johnny had – apparently lied – bragged about all the girls he had slept with in high school. Bucky had listened to the stories, everyone had, but he wasn’t invested in Johnny’s sex life.

_“So why should it be different if it’s a bunch of fellas he’s fucking instead of dames?”_

Exactly! That’s what Steve had always thought. He had listened in church when preachers went on about homosexuals being disgusting and dammed, but he had never _understood._

But even though he knew Bucky was okay with guys being with other guys, he still wasn’t prepared to tell him that Steve wanted to be with him. Maybe it would be different if he found out his best friend was gay, that he had lived with a gay person, shared a room with one, shared a _bed_ with one. Though Steve didn’t technically identify as gay, more likely bisexual. He still hadn’t quite gotten the terminology figured out.

Steve couldn’t have possibly hid it anymore though, and once he had finished confessing his undying love to Bucky, he was fully prepared for Bucky to hit him, to tell him to stay the hell away from him. Especially since Steve had just finished helping Bucky bathe and get dressed five minutes before his admission. Maybe Bucky would feel violated or taken advantage of.

He didn’t, though. He had stared at Steve in shock for a while. Clearly Steve wasn’t being as obvious as he thought he had been, especially since Bucky got back. He used to look at Bucky for a second too long, or smile just a little too much with him, curl up to him a little closer whilst feigning sleep when they had to share a bed. But since he had been back and Bucky had been okay with Steve touching him (which had taken a few weeks, the hardest weeks of Steve’s life), Steve hardly ever stopped unless Bucky expressly asked him to. He would always have an arm around Bucky’s shoulder or be touching his hand, or stroking his hair. He told Bucky that it was just to comfort him, told _himself_ it was just to comfort Bucky, but he knew that was sort of a lie. He had done it to comfort Bucky, but he also did it to comfort himself. To reassure himself that Bucky was really here and this wasn’t all just some elaborate dream sequence. He also did it just because he had always had an itching desire to touch Bucky, and he couldn’t deny himself that as much as he had done back then.

Steve had prompted Bucky to say something when he had been silent for too long, almost begged him to. The more the silence stretched on, the more afraid Steve was that Bucky was going to blow up any minute now and start cursing Steve, start _hating_ him. That was the most terrifying thing about all of this, the thought of Bucky hating him, or Steve losing his best friend _again_ , but this time because of his own stupid mouth.

Instead, his mouth ended up very preoccupied. Bucky moved so fast, all Steve had done was blink and suddenly Bucky’s lips were against his own. Steve had flinched, he had expected a punch if anything. But as soon as he realised that he wasn’t going to get hit, he was being _kissed_ , he forced himself to relax slightly. The kiss wasn’t the passionate make-out session that Steve had envisioned. Bucky’s lips didn’t move, so neither did Steve. It was like the awkward kisses kids did when they were playing spin the bottle for the first time. No movement, lips slightly pursed and closed. Even so, it was the best thing Steve had ever felt, because it was _Bucky’s lips_ on his own. Bucky moved back almost as fast as he had shot forward, a deep blush colouring his cheeks which probably matched Steve’s own. They had sat in silence for a few moments, then Steve had timidly asked if they could do that again.

This time, it had been the make-out session Steve had imagined. It had started the same as their first kiss, but Bucky slowly and hesitantly started moving his lips and Steve had quickly copied him. Eventually, Steve couldn’t stop himself from plunging his tongue between Bucky’s parted lips and the sound Bucky made in response went straight to Steve’s dick. Steve ended up on top of Bucky, who was laid across the couch with one leg hanging off to give Steve space to lie between them.

If that was how Bucky used to kiss the girls back when they were growing up, Steve definitely understood why he was always getting laid. He understood anyway, all you had to do was take one look at Bucky and know that he was attractive. And he was sweet and respectful and thoughtful. He was the perfect guy, and his oral skills only added to that. And not just his oral skills when it came to kissing. Bucky had the _best_ mouth.

Three months later, Steve came out as bisexual in a press conference, completely unplanned. The reporter had asked him if there were any special ladies in his life, and Steve was getting real tired of the hetero normality. So he shook his head and said; _“No. No ladies. There’s a guy though. Bucky.”_

The reporter had assumed he misunderstood what he had meant when he said _special_ but before the guy had a chance to elaborate, Steve interrupted by telling him he knew exactly what he meant and Steve was answering the question. Someone else asked the nature of his and Bucky’s relationship, being very hesitant with the word “relationship” and Steve had announced that they were in a relationship and in love. Their public relations manager had ended the conference there as every reporter in the audience started yelling questions, but not before Steve could announce the answer to a lot of said questions. “ _Actually, I believe the term is ‘bisexual’”._

Steve reluctantly broke the kiss so they could take a moment to breathe, then ran his fingers through Bucky’s hair. Because he was sat on the counter, he was a little higher than Steve now, and the new angle was interesting. Steve wasn’t used to having to look up to kiss anyone, except for when Bucky was sat somewhere higher up or Steve was lifting him with his arms wrapped under Bucky’s ass. Steve especially loved that position, because it meant Bucky’s whole body was pressed against his. In fact, he loved it so much that all it took was one thought about it and he was tugging Bucky off the counter to lift him up like that, quickly locking his lips back over Bucky’s. Bucky laughed quietly, but quickly kissed back as he wrapped his arms around Steve’s shoulders. He only ever admitted it once, in the privacy of their bed, but Steve knew that Bucky loved being picked up and/or carried by Steve. If anyone ever asked him, Bucky would deny it, but he liked that he could be manhandled. Most of the time, like now, in a nice way. He wanted to feel small and light. It helped him pretend he didn’t take up a lot of space or draw a lot of attention to himself despite the obvious things that did draw attention. Such as a large metal prosthetic arm. But sometimes, it was in a not so nice way. Steve was never cruel, but sometimes he would pick Bucky up and throw him on the bed, move him around and manipulate him into whatever position Steve wanted him in, and Bucky would happily follow Steve’s prompts.

Right now, Steve kept it nice. He kept his arms crossed under Bucky’s ass he keep him high, Bucky’s legs dangling off the floor as he kissed him, and soon enough the kisses got a little more heated and Bucky wrapped his legs around Steve’s middle. That way, Steve was able to slip his arms a little further under him so Bucky was practically sat on them. Without having to see, Steve managed to manoeuvre them to the bedroom.

He didn’t sit on the bed though, or throw Bucky down. Not yet. First, he moved to press Bucky between his own body and the solid wall, effectively trapping him there. A year ago, this would have been a terrifying experience for Bucky; not being in control of his own body, being trapped. But now, he just let out a little moan and tightened his legs around him. His arms loosened though, because he knew he didn’t need to hold onto Steve tight right now. He had done it before for balance and to press his body close to Steve’s, but between the wall and Steve’s chest he definitely wasn’t going to fall, and Steve was crowded so close to him that they were touching everywhere possible regardless.

Instead, one of Bucky’s hands moved up to run through Steve’s short hair and the other rested on his shoulder lightly. It felt good, knowing that Bucky trusted him to hold him up without Bucky having to put any effort into helping him. His legs stayed tight around him though as Steve’s hands kneaded Bucky’s cheeks, eliciting a quiet groan from both of them.

Steve could already feel himself hardening, and if the blunt and light pressure against his abs was anything to go by, so was Bucky. So he decided to give Bucky more pleasure and slowly moved one arm from under him.

“Keep your legs tight around me.” He muttered against Bucky’s lips, and Bucky nodded quickly, said lips parted slightly.

Steve used that as an opportunity to plunge his tongue back into Bucky’s mouth, and Bucky moaned quietly as he sucked on it, then they resumed their usual kissing. He felt Bucky’s legs tighten around him, and Steve moved his arms from under him, stepping forward to make sure Bucky was completely trapped and held up between himself and the wall. He moved his hands to Bucky’s waist, then tugged his sweatpants down just enough to reveal Bucky’s ass. He couldn’t get them down anymore without Steve having to put him down and have Bucky’s legs unwind from around him, and Steve wasn’t prepared to allow that. He broke the kiss, then held two fingers up to Bucky’s lips. Bucky understood immediately and took Steve’s fingers into his mouth to start sucking on them, his tongue swirling around the digits. Steve’s face stayed close, his nose just an inch away from Bucky’s, and he could almost feel his own eyes darkening with lust at the sight of Bucky sucking on his fingers, his cheeks hollowed around them and blushed slightly, his eyes closed in pleasure. Steve rocked forward against him, and Bucky’s breath hitched slightly as it caused Bucky’s clothed erection to rub against Steve’s abs.

Credit to him, Bucky’s antics didn’t even stutter as he kept sucking Steve’s fingers until Steve deemed them wet enough and pulled them from between Bucky’s cherry coloured lips. He didn’t give Bucky time to prepare before his spit slicked fingers were against his hole, circling Bucky’s rim slowly and teasingly. He felt the muscles jump slightly and Bucky’s breath hitch again before he let out a quiet groan in anticipation. Steve didn’t keep him waiting long, and he slowly pressed one finger into Bucky, watching his face closely for any sign of discomfort. All he saw there was pleasure. Bucky let out a sigh that ruffled his hair hanging in front of his face slightly, before said hair fell back down and clung to Bucky’s lips.

Steve wanted to brush it away, to be able to see Bucky’s face properly, but he didn’t want to jostle around too much in case he dropped Bucky. He slowly pumped his finger in and out of him until Bucky started to get a little impatient and whimpered quietly, rocking his hips to try and get more of Steve’s finger inside him. Steve pressed his second finger inside Bucky and the brunet moaned quietly at the slight burn of the stretch. He gave Bucky a moment to adjust this time, but after just a few seconds Bucky started rocking his hips impatiently again. Steve chuckled quietly and started pressing his fingers further into him, then slowly pulled them out almost all the way before repeating the action. The slow pace was starting to frustrate Bucky, he could tell by the huffs and groans he kept releasing, but Steve held his ground. He did, however, allow his fingertips to brush over Bucky’s prostate. The reaction he got from his boyfriend was intoxication. Bucky gasped and moaned out Steve’s name, his hands on Steve’s shoulder and in his hair tightening slightly. Steve couldn’t help but do it again. And again. And again.

Eventually, he could see a thin sheen of sweat cover Bucky’s skin as Steve rubbed against his prostate relentlessly for a few seconds, then purposely avoided it for a much longer time period. He couldn’t stop himself as he leant forward to lick a stripe up the length of the side of Bucky’s neck. That earned him another moan.

“Steve… Steve, please…?”

God, how could he possibly deny that?

“What do you want, baby?”

Bucky loved it when he called him that, and he let Steve knew by releasing a quiet keen at his words. “You know exactly what I want.”

“I want you to say it.” He breathed the words into Bucky’s neck, feeling a distinct wet patch in the front of Bucky’s sweatpants and Steve’s shirt where he was rocking his hips to try and rub against Steve and impale himself on his fingers.

Bucky let out a quiet whimper before tilting his head a little so his lips were brushing against Steve’s ear. “I want you to shove your dick in me and fuck me until I forget my own name.”

 _Perfect_.

Steve growled quietly in Bucky’s ear as he pulled his fingers out. He pushed his own sweatpants down, licked his palm and stroked himself to lube up his length a little, then swiftly pushed into Bucky. He didn’t go slow. He did exactly what Bucky asked for, he shoved it in. Bucky gasped and tried his hardest not to moan, but a little whimper escaped past his lips. Steve knew that there was still a stretch. He had only used two fingers to prep Bucky, and he knew his dick was thicker than two fingers, but Bucky had told him on multiple occasions that he liked the burn. He liked feeling Steve’s member stretching him open to mould him around Steve. So he only gave him a few seconds to adjust before he slowly pulled out a little and pressed back inside Bucky, where he belonged. Bucky was starting to get impatient already, so Steve moved his hands under Bucky’s arms and lifted him up a little. It wasn’t difficult. Then, he started thrusting up into him at the same time as he lifted and lowered Bucky’s body onto him. Bucky’s hands gripped Steve’s shoulders again as he moaned. That’s all he could really do besides tightening his legs around Steve’s waist. Steve was in charge of everything else, Bucky was just hanging there for Steve to fuck into.

A while ago, that would have been a concept Steve was scared to explore. He didn’t want Bucky to feel used, and he certainly didn’t want to be the one to make Bucky feel that way. But they had had a long conversation about it, and Bucky had explained that he liked this. Everyone else had used him for violence and murder, but with Steve it would be for pleasure. Steve’s as well as Bucky’s. Bucky didn’t have to think or really do anything when they were like this, he just had to trust Steve to take the lead and make them both feel good.

And that’s exactly what he planned to do now.

That position got a little tiring for Steve eventually, though, so he wrapped his arms around Bucky’s middle to pull him close again, then stepped back and turned to take them to the bed. As he did, he kissed Bucky again, swallowing all the little moans and gasps he made as Steve moved them with his dick still buried inside Bucky.

He laid him down on the fresh sheets and moved Bucky’s arms up so they were on the pillow above Bucky’s head.

“Keep them there. Don’t move.” Steve told him in a deep voice, and Bucky nodded quickly in confirmation.

When he moved his own hands away, Bucky’s stayed exactly where Steve had placed them. He smiled in silent praise, then moved his hands to Bucky’s legs, behind his knees. He lifted his legs up and bent them back so his knees were against Bucky’s chest, parted, then started thrusting into him again. Bucky struggled to breathe a little at first, but Steve knew he didn’t have to be worried about that and soon enough, Bucky was breathing just fine with his legs bent up to his chest. He moaned and whined each time Steve moved inside him, and the sounds were just as intoxicating as the feeling of Bucky’s muscles clenching around him each time he pulled out, like he was trying to keep Steve inside him at all costs.

Which he probably was.

He squirmed under him too, which made Steve shift inside him more and caused more pleasure for both of them. Then, Steve shifted a little, leaning forward so he was resting more of his weight on Bucky’s legs pressed to his chest. The change in position meant that Steve was able to hit Bucky’s prostate with every thrust, and Bucky was practically screaming in pleasure. No matter how lost in the feeling he got, though, Bucky’s arms never moved from where Steve had placed them. Well, not until Steve really got going. Then, Bucky’s mind seemed to have gone blank and he moved one hand down to stroke himself. Steve stopped abruptly when he saw his fingers wrap around his length though, and Bucky whimpered quietly. He opened his eyes to look up at Steve and try to figure out why he had suddenly stopped, then he noticed his mistake.

He looked remorseful for all of one second, then that cocky smirk was on his lips. “Whoops.”

Steve pulled out of him then, and Bucky pouted. He was about to protest, but then Steve had him under the arms again and lifted him up. Before Bucky could even register what was happening, Steve was sat on the edge of the bed and he had Bucky over his lap, ass up, head down. Steve wrapped an arm around his middle to keep him in place over his lap, so if Bucky squirmed he wouldn’t fall off.

Bucky didn’t seem to find this amusing anymore, but he didn’t hate the idea either. Steve knew that Bucky had a bit of a kink for being spanked, and he fully intended to play to that kink.

“You know why this is happening?” He asked first, his hand rubbing soothing circles on one of Bucky’s cheeks.

Bucky just let out a breathy little moan and squirmed slightly, trying to grind down against Steve’s thigh. Steve gave him a light swat at first, mainly just to get his attention.

“I asked you a question.”

He definitely had Bucky’s attention now, and he stilled as he thought about what to say to Steve. Steve waited patiently. Sometimes it took Bucky’s mind a few seconds to catch up to what’s going on around them, a side-effect of years of electricity being shot through his brain. Steve wasn’t going to punish him for that. He knew when Bucky was genuinely trying to think and when he was just ignoring Steve. He also knew when Bucky might need a little prompting to remember.

“Do you know why this is happening?” He asked again, and Bucky nodded immediately this time, the action making his hair fall over his face. He had gone limp now, his head upside down.

“I didn’t do as I was told…?”

“That’s right.” Steve assured him when he heard the question in his voice. “And what were you told?”

“Keep my hands were you put them.” Bucky sounded much surer now, and Steve smiled.

“Right. How many do you think that translates to?” Steve had a number in mind, but sometimes Bucky wasn’t really into this part and he just wanted a low number, and other times he wanted a higher number than the act really warranted. The number he was thinking of was just five. It wasn’t exactly a huge disobedience, and they weren’t really doing a proper scene at the minute.

“Ten…” Bucky answered. It was much higher, so Steve knew that he wasn’t saying that because he just miscalculated the amount Steve thought it was worth. That’s how many Bucky wanted.

Steve nodded, though Bucky couldn’t see, then didn’t waste any more time. He laid one open-handed smack against Bucky’s right ass cheek and smirked slightly when Bucky yelped and twitched in his lap. He hadn’t seen Steve nod, so he hadn’t expected it.

“Count.” Steve reminded him, and Bucky did so.

“One.”

“Good.” Steve always made sure to praise Bucky as much as possible. He enjoyed praising Bucky, and he knew Bucky enjoyed the praise.

He spanked him again, on his left cheek this time, and Bucky didn’t even hesitate to count out the ‘two’, though only after he had let out a little gasp.

After the fifth smack, Bucky’s ass was red. Steve contemplated being a little weaker for the rest, but he knew Bucky would be able to tell and he knew Bucky didn’t want Steve to go easy on him. So he laid another hard smack against Bucky’s ass and listened carefully to the noises he made, looking for any sign that he was in too much pain. He sounded like he was really enjoying it, so Steve loosened up a little and rained down the next two in quick succession, smirking as Bucky struggled to count them out in time.

“Just two more, baby. You’re doing so well.” Steve assured him, then spanked him two more times, once more on each cheek.

Bucky was gasping for breath after his muttered out _‘ten’_ , and Steve rubbed soothing circles over his cheeks.

“All done, Bucky... You did so great, baby. I love you so much... You were so good for me, sweetheart. So perfect...” Steve muttered an almost constant string of praise as Bucky remained limp over his lap, then he leant down to press a kiss to one of Bucky’s hot cheeks. He kissed the other one too when Bucky squirmed slightly.

Then, he spread Bucky’s cheeks, careful not to hurt him too much, and leant down to swipe his tongue over his hole. It was a little difficult from this position, but it was worth it when he felt Bucky’s breath hitch and heard him let out another moan.

Bucky’s dick had been dripping constantly with precome since Steve had started spanking him, and it still didn’t let up. After a few more swipes of his tongue, Steve had gotten the taste for it. He lifted Bucky off his lap and moved him back onto the bed, facedown. Bucky went with whatever Steve did and cushioned his head with his arms as he spread his legs a little.

Steve didn’t dive right back in though. First, he admired the sight in front of him of Bucky spread out, light skin contrasting the red on his ass in the shape of Steve’s handprints perfectly, his hair a mess around his head.

He wanted to draw Bucky like this, but he knew he already had a sketchpad full of drawing of Bucky in positions like this. Spread out, tied up, gasping in pleasure, crying from overstimulation with a vibrator in his ass turned up to full. He even had one of him in pretty much the same position he was now, so Steve didn’t give himself the honour of dwelling on the sight for too long. Instead, he leant forward to pull Bucky’s cheeks apart again and rubbed the tip of his tongue against his pucker.

Bucky tensed slightly, then instantly relaxed as he let out a little moan. He was still stretched from a few minutes ago, so after running his tongue around Bucky’s rim a few times, Steve could easily press his tongue inside him. He wriggled his tongue, and Bucky pressed back against him with another, louder, moan.

Steve thrusted his tongue in and out of him a few times, getting Bucky’s hole as slopping and wet as he could, then sat up again and pressed the head of his cock inside him. He sunk in slowly and Bucky shifted under him to tuck his knees under himself. The change meant that his ass was raised for Steve, and Steve smirked as he gripped his hips and started pounding into him again.

Bucky had been pretty docile while Steve ate him out, letting out little whines and moans every now and then but no more than that.

Now, however, it was like Steve had reawakened him. He moaned louder, pressed himself back each time Steve thrusted in to make him go deeper, and squirmed under him. Eventually, Steve stopped moving and just pulled Bucky’s hips back and pushed him forward to make Steve’s dick thrust in and out of him. Bucky seemed more than happy with the latest development and happily moved his hips in time with Steve’s prompting. Steve then realised he couldn’t see Bucky’s face and that he wasn’t okay with that. He moved one hand to grip Bucky’s hair, then pulled him back by it and his other hand gripped Bucky’s hip as Steve sat back on his knees. He pulled Bucky to sit in his lap, then moved both hands to his waist again once Bucky’s head was tilted back onto Steve’s shoulder and his face was tilted towards him.

The thrusts were shallower from this angle, but Steve was able to kiss Bucky as the same time, so that outweighed any negatives. Bucky was pretty out of it by this point, only really able to move his hips in time with Steve’s thrusts. That was good. It meant Steve was giving Bucky so much pleasure that that’s all he could think of. It also meant that Steve could slip his tongue between Bucky’s slack lips whenever he wanted with no prompting. Bucky’s tongue would move along with his whenever he was in his mouth, by mostly Steve was able to just explore the inside of Bucky’s mouth with his tongue as his cock repeatedly drilled inside Bucky’s ass.

Steve only had to stroke Bucky’s member a handful of times before his muscles clenched around him, he moaned into Steve’s mouth and spilled all over Steve’s hand. The feeling sent Steve over the edge with a breathless moan of Bucky’s name soon after.

They would have stayed like that if it weren’t for the fact that Steve’s legs were going numb from being tucked up under himself and supporting his and Bucky’s weight. He circled his arms around Bucky to keep him close, then slowly moved them so that they were spooning on the bed, Steve’s softening length still buried inside Bucky. It was nice and warm inside him, so Steve left it inside. He could sense that Bucky was already pretty much asleep and chuckled quietly before pressing a kiss to the top of Bucky’s head and carefully reaching over to pull the duvet over them both so they could sleep.

Yeah, Steve really loved his life. He had the best routine ever.


End file.
